Iowa LTEs Iowa Sierrans:

These LTEs appeared in the Des Moines Register this morning, 9/18/02, and Friday, 9/13/02.

FYI. Opportunities for response. You could harken back to the policy statements and joint letter of SF Sierra and the Wildnerness Society to create appropriate responses.

National is also, not because of these LTEs but the Craig Amendment in the Senate, planning to do accountablity press in several states, perhaps including Iowa. Let know what you think of that.

Lyle Krewson
Iowa EVEC Coordinator

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Letters to the editor


By Register Readers
09/13/2002
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Policy caused forest fires
In John Balzar's column Aug. 31, "We Pay Price for Logging on the Cheap," he certainly sounded like a forestry expert. I don't know how having a woodworking shop in the basement makes one an expert on forestry management. Most of what he has to say is far different from the articles I have read written by people with degrees in forestry management.

They all agree that the actions taken by the Clinton administration are directly responsible for the devastating fires that have been raging in the West the last two summers.

Balzar writes that Bill Clinton used logging as a works program. If that is true, it was well hidden from the public. What Clinton did do, at the urging of environmentalists, was declare that millions of additional acres of forests could become national monuments and ordered the Forestry Service to close all access roads, build fences around them and keep everyone out.

The results were predictable. Dead and broken trees that should have been removed were left untouched. Uncontrolled undergrowth, fallen branches, saplings and other fuel sources piled up on the forest floor just waiting for a spark to set them off. When the sparks came, the roads the firefighters needed to get to the source of the fires had been destroyed.

The past two summers we have seen the folly of the hands-off policy. Millions upon millions of beautiful and valuable forests have been reduced to smoldering ash. The varied and abundant wildlife that lived in the forests became nothing more than a barbecued snack for circling buzzards.

Even after witnessing all the devastation, the environmentalists still argue that they're right.

-Jack Banghart
Des Moines
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By Register Readers
09/18/2002

National forests are for people

The John Balzar Aug. 31 column correctly said that we are squandering our forests. Unfortunately, he thinks letting our forests burn to ashes is far preferable to sensible forest management.

Those who call for letting the forests burn are also those who say we are destroying the ozone layer through burning fossil fuels. Each of the major forest fires we have had over the past several years has spewed more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere than all the fossil fuels burned in the United States every year.

There are currently 191 million acres of national forest. Of that, 73 percent is considered forested with 35 percent available for logging.

The National Forest Service allows 0.5 percent of the trees in the national forest to be removed every year. We have dropped the allowable levels of logging to pre-1950 levels. The forest service has attempted to allow enough thinning to prevent the massive forest fires that have been occurring. Unfortunately, they are met with unending lawsuits by the likes of Earth First, the Sierra Club and other left-wing extremist groups.

We currently import less lumber than we are allowed to burn every year. If sensible sustainable logging were allowed, we could reduce fires, reduce our import of lumber and increase the area actually forested. Environmentalists tell us that uses such as newsprint and plywood are destroying our forests. Most of those products are produced from southern pine that grows as fast as it is used.

Our current policy causes us to import lumber from other countries where careful management is not practiced. The environmental groups are exporting problems to the rest of the world.

The environmental groups' goal of keeping forests off-limits to all humans so they can burn naturally with only forest creatures having had the privilege of seeing a 200-foot tree, makes little sense if we wish to manage the forests for their preservation and the benefit of people. If a tree burns in the wilderness where no man has ever been allowed to see it, does it make any sense?

-David C. Hammel,
Urbandale.